Are you thinking about a rebrand for your store’s identity? Sure there are risks involved. There is, of course, the cost of the investment, but what about the way the rebrand will be communicated to your customers? How will they respond to this new identity? I read an article, The Keys to a Great Rebrand: Advice From the Duo Who Revamped Chobani and Spotify, written by Matt McCue. In the article, McCue shares advice from Brian Collins, CCO and co-founder of the branding company, Collins, and Leland Maschmeyer, CCO at Chobani and co-founder at Collins, for a successful brand redesign. They give 6 key points to consider. A rebrand includes a redesign of your company’s logo. As someone who has done logo design in the past, I can tell you there is a lot more work and time put into designing a logo than you may realize. Then you’ve got revisions to typography, possibly colors, imagery, voice. It is an entire revamp of the advertising and marketing approach. It is not something you want to do just because it sounds…
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WordCamp recap – Voice Your Values
At WordCamp this year there was a lot of talk about ADA and SEO. I’ll talk about ADA in another recap soon. As for SEO, we have written articles recently, such as Content Marketing & SEO and How SEO Can Strengthen Your Digital Store Brand Identity. While you do need good SEO to drive traffic to your website, values are important too. Actually, in today’s world, it is kind of unique. Having core values to define your brand can make you stand out from your competition. In the WordCamp session, Voice Your Values, Andrea Garcia, Chief Mind Officer at mind+matter, says to let others know who you are and who you are not. Define your brand. Voice your values and you will connect with customers who are looking for the same values. That makes sense, right? When you hang out with friends, don’t you have the best time when you are with those who share the same values and the same interests? We at AWG manage social media pages for many of our members. One thing we must keep in…
KCDMA Recap: A Marketer’s Guide to PPC Ad Extensions
At this month’s KCDMA luncheon, Erik Dahlstrom from Emfluence presented a marketer’s guide to PPC (pay per click) ad extensions. Before we get into that, let’s talk about the basics of creating a Google Ad. Go to ads.google.com You must have a Google account for your business and be logged in to start a Google Ads campaign. Select campaign type – search, display, app, shopping, video. Create Google Analytics account if you don’t already have one, then link your Analytics to your Google Ads and set up Goals to track conversions. Go back to Google Ads to import Google Analytics goals. Select campaign settings in Google Ads, such as audience, run dates, budget, bidding and ad extensions. Set up ad groups and select keywords. Create ads for each ad group. Campaigns are now created and you can modify specific strategies for each campaign. Payment method needs to be set up before running a campaign. There is an excellent tutorial with more details on setting up Google ads at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLeduV-d7lc Notice in step 6, I mention ad extensions. Erik says no…
A Case Study for Customer Surveys
Have you ever considered conducting a customer survey for business? You might think it would be a waste of your time but consider this statistic from Zendesk: “96% of consumers don’t bother to complain, making consumer surveys an excellent way for organizations to better understand their customers’ problems.” Instead of making assumptions or viewing your business from the owner or management perspective, go directly to the people who affect your bottom line: your customers. I’ve worked with several stores on crafting and maintaining customers service surveys for both their overall customer service and specifically for their online shopping programs. I used my experience working with these stores to develop a case study of how and why to create a customer service survey. To read the full case study, click HERE. Here is a quick summary of what I cover in the case study: When to Use Customer Surveys Consider running an ongoing general customer service survey so your customers always have the option to provide feedback. I highly recommend running a separate customer service survey for your online shopping program,…
Video Content Strategy for Smart People (IABC Breakout Session Recap)
You may have heard that video is becoming a pretty big deal in digital marketing. Facebook is prioritizing video posts higher than other types of content when their algorithm determines what to show in the News Feed. And in case you didn’t realize the level of its popularity, YouTube has more than one billion users — or one third of the internet. The last breakout session I attended at the 2018 Business Communicators Summit for the KC chapter of IABC was presented by Jolean Olson of Scenic Road Products. She shared with us why video is so important to marketing (both internal and external) and how to develop the best strategy for your company to use video. First she covered why video is so important. Employees are 75% more likely to watch a video than to read documents, emails or web articles. Video generates 3x as many monthly visitors to a website as other content Visitors spend 88% more time on a website that includes video Organic traffic from search engines increases by 157% with video While it’s great to…
Content Marketing Demystified (IABC Summit Keynote Address Recap)
If you work with me or any other AWG digital specialist on your digital marketing, you’ve probably heard us discuss content marketing. But what exactly is content marketing? It’s not just about the content we post on your social media profiles, your website or your blog. It’s the strategy behind the content that’s being posted. I recently attended the 2018 Business Communicators Summit for the KC chapter of IABC. The keynote speaker was Quinn Tempest, a digital marketing strategist and graphic designer from Phoenix. Her presentation was titled “Content Marketing Demystified” and she covered the myths of content marketing and the lessons she’s learned about content marketing throughout her career working with various companies and individuals. Quinn describes content marketing as “the art of providing relevant, useful content to your prospects without selling or interrupting them.” She asserts that instead of pitching your products or services, you are delivering information that makes your audience more informed before they buy. The goal is to deliver consistent, ongoing, valuable information your customers/prospects so that they will ultimately reward you with their business…
Survey Says…
How do AWG member retailers stack up against their competitors when it comes to marketing and advertising to consumers? We set out to answer this question (and many more) when we recently sent out a survey to our retail members. We wanted to know where our retailers are today in terms of their marketing/advertising strategies, where they want to be, and how they compare to other grocers. Thank you to everyone who took the time to complete our survey! Below are the results. The Print Vs. Digital Debate The majority of our respondents spend about 80% of their time and resources on print advertising (which includes weekly ads, store signage, etc.) versus 20% on digital marketing (websites, marketing email, text, social media). AWG offers both services, because we believe in an integrated approach to advertising and marketing your store. Why? “The consumer has no singular path to purchase anymore. As retailers, we need to be at the crossroads of as many of their research and purchase decisions as possible to drive traffic our way. This means we have to choose…
Check The Stats: Digital Signage
What are you doing with all of those TVs and monitors at the different areas in your store? Do you even have any monitors spread out to engage with your customers? If there is a deli special or new product that you’d like to introduce to your customers, you really need to start engaging with digital signage. A study conducted by Arbitron, a subsidiary of the trusted Nielsen ratings group, delivered some valuable data on digital display advertising success in retail. As useful and necessary as it is to employ an online marketing strategy, how do you plan on engaging with the new customers you gain through those online channels? According to the study, digital media in public venues reach 27 percent more people than these endeavors. Over 50 percent of those viewers claim to recall the exact message they viewed via these digital signage tools up to a month after the initial viewing. This type of effectiveness can launch your ads and special events into the stratosphere, where quality digital display ads develop a positive reputation with your customers…
Internet Technology and It’s Crazy Capabilities
I attended a presentation on technology and consumer trends. Here’s a little of what I came back with. Ever log onto the Interwebs to browse your favorite sites and an advertisement pops up? Of course you have. Did you think it was coincidence that the ad was promoting something you had searched before? Well, it wasn’t. In fact that advertisement was specifically for you. I know you’re thinking to yourself. How is that even possible?! I knew the government was hiding aliens! No, not really, well maybe, who can really be sure. What I can tell you; is that aliens didn’t generate that advertisement; it was delivered to your screen by something called AI (Augmented Intelligence). Augmented Intelligence is a technology that analyzes 2.5 Exabytes per day. What’s an Exabyte? I know, I had to look it up too, but to save you time I’ll share. An Exabyte is one quintillion bytes, or one billion gigabytes. Gigabytes are one billion bytes, so it’s a billion times a billion times 2.5…A LOT of data. We all contribute data. The sites you…
Marketing To The Middle
As Associated Wholesale Grocers, this community of more than 3,800 grocery stores in the “middle” of America, I would wager that over the years, many of us have had a good pulse on who our customers were. Many of us still know very well who our customers are, but not everyone truly gets the essence of what motivates their customers and what they’re looking for in a shopping experience. Given the current political climate and the election results, it has many questioning if we really know what we’re dealing with in our country. AdWeek has recently published a cover story (http://www.adweek.com/agencies/marketers-everywhere-are-rethinking-middle-america-post-trump-inside-one-effort-to-help-them/) about marketers rethinking their strategy for middle America and it’s a fascinating look at how companies, their agencies, and marketers are trying to figure out who middle America truly is and how they can deliver their message to consumers. It’s a tricky subject and there’s not one easy answer. But let’s take a quick look at some of the themes of the article. Brands don’t understand the middle American shopper. The article tells of tours of the midwest by those…